Dolls

It takes a while for DOLLS to sink in. Not because of the complexity of the stories intertwined through the film but because of the sheer emotional impact virtually every scene carries with it.

I won't go into details about the three stories but I can say that, above all else, DOLLS is a lesson in love and anguish and it is by far Kitano's most powerful work, even more so than Hana-bi.

I'm baffled by the negative reviews I've seen of this film since it was first aired. I wonder if it might be a case of the viewer needing to understand the way Japanese often tend to act and feel when faced with difficult or unbearable situations and without that understanding you might question if people would ever really act the way they do in DOLLS. The answer is that often they really do.

I've considered Kitano a master film maker for a long time now. The man has only ever made one film that can't be considered good (the embarrassingly poor Getting Any?) and I consider Hana-bi in particular to be one of the finest films ever made. But Dolls almost functions at another level. I don't know how often I will watch it because it genuinely is emotionally draining but this is simply a brilliant piece of film making. The cinematography is exquisite. The acting is fantastic, especially Miho Kanno who gives such a tragic, beautiful performance while hardly saying a world throughout the film. And above all, the emotional bond forged with the viewer is beyond any I think I've ever seen on film.

Anyone who truly loves film should see Dolls. Actors should see Dolls if only to see how little you really need to give in order to portray real emotion. Directors should see Dolls and learn from a master. I genuinely believe Kitano will go down in history as a genius film maker. Dolls may well be his masterpiece.

3 stories of doomed relation ships. all jumbled together.

I just got done watching this movie. Yes it's slow. Yes there isn't a lot of dialogue. But this movie is brilliant. The visuals, the style, the symbolism, the utter sadness..

This isn't a movie for people who want action. or people who want dialogue. Visuals people, READ the visuals. The story is told through images.

It's beautiful. But very depressing.

HIGHLY recommended.

I was not aware that beauty like this existed in the world. In _Dolls_, director/writer Kitano draws us into a classical myth set in contemporary Japanese society. You may recognize elements borrowed from traditional legends (Oedipus, Arabian Nights, etc); however the central theme is, as far as I know, an original. It is the story of the "leashed beggars" who are introduced in the beginning, and whose story unfolds in a challenging, non-linear way as the film progresses.

I call it "challenging", because the viewer is compelled to pay attention to every detail in order to realize the plot and sublime theme. In that respect, it is much like _Citizen Kane_, told in fragments which the viewer must assemble and interpret. The underlying philosophy is yet more elusive and will have you debating for days afterward.

To me, what made this film superior to _Citizen Kane_ (through no fault of Orson Welles!) is the extreme use of colors and vivid scenery. The stunning backgrounds become a silent character in the movie, filling in for the sparse dialogue and periodic silence. As we evolve through Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, the saying comes to mind "a picture is worth a thousand words". If this review makes sense to you, then you will not be disappointed!

Praising or dismissing "Dolls" as pure aesthetics is just a banal way of labeling something that is beautiful which does not lend itself to immediate understanding. Just because any number of the meanings of the film don't jump out and bite the viewer is no reason to dismiss it as only aesthetically pleasing. We've got plenty of nature scenes and people starring blankly into space in cinema. They are not all masterpieces and "Dolls" would not be even half decent if that's all it was. If you feel the need to like this movie, then a better expression of this feeling is need than saying, "It's purdy."

As for myself I found there we several themes running through the film that merit investigation. First of all, the idea of hierarchy in relationships. In all the relationship there was a clearly dominant partner (yakuza, pop-star, groom) and a clear subservient partner (lady on bench, fan, discarder girlfriend). At the beginning of the film their supremacy is flaunted. They come and go as they please and treat the other member of the relationship flippantly and with little regard. They believe themselves to be the more powerful person in the relationship and think they are not as dependent on the so-called weaker member as the weaker member is on them. So times passes, some strange occurrences take place and whom do these people come back to? Who are the most important people in their lives? Those weaker partners. In the end, they and we realize that the stronger or more assertive member in a relationship is just as dependent on the weaker member as the weaker is on the strong. In this context they are seen as both playing roles essential to the relationship, the fact that one is more forceful than the other does not undermine the importance of the less assertive person¡¦s role. Of course this is not to be taken literally and applied to all relationships but it is a comment on or investigation of the idea of stronger and weaker partners in a relationship. The ultimate conclusion is a deconstruction of the hierarchy that shows the partners to be equal or at least codependent.

The next question is: "Why were all of these relationships unsuccessful?" My ascertation is that this plays into the strict nature of Japanese culture and Kitano's own morose sense of destiny, seen most vividly in "Sonatine". All the male characters make major life mistakes in the film. They attempt to rectify them by seeking comfort in the person they have wronged, or in the case of the blind man in the person with the closest connection. Why are they not allowed to start again? Why do they all fail? So many films are about starting over, that it's never too late to turn over a new leaf, old dogs can learn new tricks etc, etc. While I'm quite glad this is not the story of a spunky middle-aged former soccer mom who finds true love the second time around, I don't see the point in the absolute negation of the power of reconciliation. You'll have to ask Kitano about all that. I'm no Japanese cultural expert, though I have been there, but this seems to fall in line with the rather strict and unforgiving personality of Japanese society. If you've made a major mistake you have to accept it and take all the consequences willingly and bow to whatever your fate may be in response to those consequences. Kitano seems to embrace this idea of not being able to escape destiny in many films, I already mentioned "Sonatine" as a particularly poignant example of this.

I still think the ¡§Hanabai¡¨ is Kitano¡¦s best work, although watching a bunch of psychotic Japanese people run into walls and fall flailing into moats on Takeshi¡¦s Castle is good too. Dolls is interesting, worth a look and still better than 99% of films out there.

"Dolls" is a gripping lesson in film as a visual medium, even when exploring territory that Beckett and Bergman handled verbally.

Takeshi Kitano wrote, directed and edited with astonishing beauty and poignancy, way beyond the audience pleasing romp of "Zatôichi: The Blind Swordsman." With minimal dialog, he is in a great partnership with the breathtaking cinematography of Katsumi Yanagishima, which uses seasonal changes as powerful visual and emotional metaphors as did "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)," and the moody music of Joe Hisaishi, which effectively switches back and forth from traditional to Western instrumentation, as the film opens with a Bunraku puppet theater performance and then the stories of three casually intersecting couples gradually enact the sensibility of this what I presume is a traditional tale. The senses are so powerfully called upon that when two blinded characters stand in a rose garden I practically smelled the flowers.

While I am sure I missed a multitude of references and symbols, particularly colors, to elements of Japanese culture past and present, the very powerful themes of the spectrum of ambition destroying love such that love becomes a guilt-filled responsibility at one extreme and obsession at the other are similarly hauntingly recalled in Western culture, such as in old English ballads and more contemporary versions like "The Long Black Veil" and Springsteen's "Reason to Believe." I also felt resonances from "Waiting for Godot" to classics sensitively sympathetic to love-tossed women as "Madame Bovary" and "Anna Karenina."

Flashbacks are used powerfully in a Joycean stream of consciousness way, so that we see the memories, dreams and disturbing nightmares of the characters'associations, literally showing us the Faulknerian dictum that "The past is never dead. It's never even past." This adds considerable emotional build-up for each character as they restlessly return to geographies with meanings to their lives and we gradually see what they were like before their current emotionally (or in some cases physically) stunted states so we heartbreakingly understand their personal iconography, particularly for those two unforgettably bound beggars.

There is no Hollywood happy endings for these couples, only acceptance of the fates they have consciously and willingly chosen and committed themselves to. But their resignation is thrillingly moving in its very graphic representation.